


Long Game

by DIYFerret



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Double Agents, Explicit Language, M/M, no happy ending (yet)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 10:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17140298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DIYFerret/pseuds/DIYFerret
Summary: Written for owvsecret18Gabriel Reyes knows the value of a good villain.





	Long Game

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gothcowboy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gothcowboy/gifts).



> written for owvsecret18 for gothcowboy! I had a lot of fun with this; I hope it hit your prompt enough, though I know it kinda ran away from me, haha.

The first time Gabriel wakes up, all he can manage is to feel agony across his entire body and think 'Well, at least I'm not dead.'

The second time he wakes without even realizing he'd ever passed out, and this time beneath the pain he can sense the quick jostling of a transport beneath him, and the phantom restraints latched across his person. Phantom because he feels as if he's phasing through them, like he made of water and were simply seeping through it. He soon passes out, however, agony winning over puzzlement.

The third time is when consciousness sticks. He comes to fast, and this is when his years of training take over. He feigns unconsciouness while taking notes- he's in some sort of restraint, spread like a bug for display, and he can hear the quick pattering on feet around him, murmurs and key strokes and guns trained upon him quivering. He can smell chemicals and latex, and the quiet, sickly sweet smell of death. He pieces it together rather quickly; a lab, unknown force but well equipped, hostile and armed.  
When he open his eyes, Gabriel Reyes is strapped on a medical table in front of Liao- Liao, his comrade, his fellow agent, there since before Overwatch was called that, had his back during the Crisis and more beyond- That Liao, suited up in a Talon jacket, smiling like he knew everything that was going through his mind.

“We didn't expect you to survive, Commander. Well, for the meaning of Survive.” He gestures to Gabriel's arm, the flickering black smoke that creeps from his wounds, scattered across his body. “It's fascinating. We're like to study it more, if you don't mind.”

He does. They, obviously, don't. He screams through it all- when the flay open what's left of his skin, when they bottle the smoke and watch his legs slowly disappear, and especially when they tear off his arm and watch it twitch and grasp on it's own accord.

He screams, and they never try to stop him.

Later, much, much later, Liao tells him the causality list. He doesn't stumble when he reads off Jack's name, but Gabriel does, right before he locks that information up and buries it far, far down.

“Good.” He interrupts, voice so distorted and rough Gabe almost can't accept it's his. Liao looks almost surprised, and then doesn't hide how pleased he is. He means it though. He's glad Jack won't be alive to witness what He's going to do.

Later, after more tests and simulations and, what Gabe knows with quiet certainty are tests, he is set in a room with Liao.

“Commander.”

Gabriel snorts. “Not a commander anymore.”

To this, Liao smiles. “Of course. I'm here to- offer you a proposal, if you shall. Will you hear me out?”

One day, Gabriel Reyes is going to shoot the motherfucker straight in his goddamn face, and curb stomp the fucker's blasted remains for the fun of it. He's going to set this entire place on fire, burn out the sickness, track down every last traitor and gut them like fish until the world is clean again.

But now, Gabe tilts his head. “I'm listening.”

Gabriel Reyes has always played the long game.

 

Time does not pass quickly. He is aware of every day, hour, minute, second he is in that pit of snakes. Windowless, underground, full of fuckfaces he doesn't know but far too many he does, did- traitors and pigs, all of them. He's not in the right position, not at all, but he can see enough to tell the Overwatch and Blackwatch were rotten nearly to the core. He can think of only a few Agents now that might not be compromised, and even then he can't be too certain (Mccree, yes, without a single doubt he is fine, and one other, one other, one other he can't think about, not yet, he has work to do, but He was good, He was good-)

He doesn't like the work he is sent to do. He will like the work in the future even less. But he does it, and to the best of his ability he ensures causalities are at a low, the innocents are away- just the right about of leaks, of persuasion and suggestion.

-Until suddenly, things change.

 

When Gabe sees the news, he lets out a laugh so loud that Talon Agents the next room over startle.

It's unintentional- he see's the familiar rifle, the sharp lines of those long legs in the grainy footage. Three years isn't enough, nothing would ever be long enough to erase the run, those shoulders, that stance. When he turns, the sharp '76' makes Gabe's head spin, the rush of half lost memories spent at a dingy gas station, of neon signs and tangled hands.

Jack Morrison, alive.

Gabe feels, with a sudden force as swift as guillotine, that every awful thing he's ever done, that he ever will do and is doing, has paid off in the form of Jack still being alive. Everything changes in the span of a three second cell phone video and a two minute news story.

Gabe comes up with the plan in about seven minutes. It will take much, much longer to actually follow through.

It's ok, he thinks, with a new found resolve that rests against his heart like a steady hand. He's always played the long game.

 

4 years, 5 months, 28 days 9 hours and 18 minutes from the Start, he gets the go ahead to accompany a scouting team to Mexico.

When they say Dorado, he thanks the Universe under his breath, and starts to plan. A 9 hour flight ahead, he has enough time to go over it all with heavy precision- he will, without a doubt, only have one shot.

No one on the teams will speak to him. They do not seek him out except when he is expected to be there, they do not question him when he leaves, and they definitely do not look him in the eyes. It is fucking hilarious, and the only highlight of this godforsaken waste of an (after)life. Looks like good looks will always win.

(He said this before, not bitter but teasing, to a flushed face and bright blue eyes-)

Their fear and disgust play into his plan. It's so easy to slip away, quiet literally now that he's been practicing, to slither up and around the cobblestone paths and bright festival flags, using the night's calm to make his way to a small, but well kept, home. It's actually a sweet looking house, purple butterfly flowers strung through pots, Passion Flowers crawling up the awning and around the windows.

He slips through the crack of the front door and around, finding the door to the bedroom and then the hidden one, leading down to the deep dark basement only lit but the glowing screens of the computers stuffed on every surface. In front of him, stuffing her face with junk food and unaware, Sombra sits. He flicks the lights on, watches her startle and turn around. “I'm here to collect.”

 

In the end, its easy. So easy, Gabriel feels like the other shoe is about to drop- something has to go wrong, it always does. -But somehow it takes only a scant few hours to break into Talon and obtain the list of compromised agents. Sombra hands him a tiny USB, almost comically so. Something this important should feel heavier, he thinks. Instead, it's so light Gabe cant even feel it through the heavy gloves.

He places it in his coat, directly above where his heart would be beating, and Sombra regards him with the most serious look he's probably ever seen her have.

“If anything you do traces back to Overwatch, everything is going to go shit again.”

Gabriel pats the USB against his chest. “Good thing I won't be Overwatch.”

 

When Reaper descends upon Winston, he does so with a 4 shotguns and a USB. He'd able to get the USB to download, spur the Ape into a battle, and manages not to critically injure either of them. He counts 7 times he could've gotten a kill shot- 8, if you count the fact he could've just shot him immediately as he walked through the door.

Sloppy. Winston was never a true combatant, but it's no excuse. Also, he fell far to easily to taunting, although points for distraction. He needs more training- luckily, with Overwatch reforming, he should be getting it. When he gets back to base, Talon is none the wiser. Of course they aren't, since he isn't a fucking idiot. When back in his room, a notification lights up, and from the tiny, near ancient (and untraceable) tablet, a thumbs up is sent, along with a few sugar skull pictures and hearts.

Good, Operation: Santa's List was a success. The nice ones get their sweet little recall invitation, off to reform the Watch and make friends. And the naughty?

Ah, He'll be there soon.

Gabriel Reyes has always played the long game.

 

Every good hero needs a villain.

Gabriel Reyes has, for a long time now, been a pretty good one.

Sometimes he fights against people he knew- Dr. Zeilger, Tracer, Torbjorn and Reinhart. Others, he learns along the way- the elusive elder Shimada, a MEKA fighter, some DJ with stolen Viskar tech. It helps they don't know who he is. It's infinity easier to be able to fight them, knowing he's a monster in their eyes, a boogy man to creep through the night. Overwatch is young, shaky on its new legs, and they need a rally point. Even more so, the World needs a rally point, needs something to hyper focus on, hate, fear. It makes sense, to let himself play the role- an imposing target, an overblown, cartoonish idea of villainy. It would be fun, if it wasn't so fucking serious that he doesn't mess up. 

So he fights against the good guys, tries not to do much damage then necessary, and he waits for chances to track down and kill the fuckers that ruined his entire life. He doesn't get to kill Liao, unfortunately; the fucker gets blown up by some tweaked out Australian, and Gabe doesn't know what side he's own but he'd love to buy the guy a drink. He does get to kill many, though- keeps a small notebook on him with only numbers, and smiles at it from time to time.

Gabe waits for the day when he puts the last one down, to see if he has to leave the last bullet for himself.

 

When he sees Jack on the battlefield, the occasion is marked by a pulse rifle shot directly to his chest.

He flies to the ground with a gracelessness that betrays his surprise- Gabe hadn't imagined how weak his knees would be, how his heart would seize and his hands would shake. There is no word for the thing feels, seeing Jack stalk towards him with the same confidence and stride that he remembers, always remembered, could never forget.

“Who are you,” Jack snarls through the distortion of his own mask, and Gabe-

It would be so easy, he thinks, to rip the mask off his face. To look Jack in the eye, past the red visor to those blue eyes he dreams of. To face him as he is, as the horror he knows he looks, and he knows Jack would stop. He thinks about taking Jack in his arms, of kissing him as bullets rocket past them. He thinks of punching his perfect face, of feeling Jack's hands around his throat. He thinks of every vicious moment turning into sweet gasps and back again.

Reality crashes down when he looks into Jack's red visor and sees the mask of white death stare back.

Oh, Gabe thinks, feeling the little bit left of his heart crack under pressure. He can't do it.

If he wants this work- if he wants Overwatch to succeed, if he wants to clean up a mess he most assuredly helped with, if he wants to make sure the undeserved gift of Jack being alive isn't squandered- He can't blow his cover- Too much at stake, too much to fuck up- Gabe lets out a sigh, an apology lost under his mask. Steels his heart against the love of his life, standing in front of him like a stranger.

One day, he hopes he can tell Jack the truth.

One day he hopes Jack will believe him.

One day he wishes, far away and so soon, that Jack will smile at him like when they were dumb army kids, before they became this, before they threw themselves into a battle they'd never escape.

-But he gets up, levels his shot guns, and plays the long game.


End file.
